Crain | A long look in the mirror for Penn men’s lacrosse

It’s the hope that kills you. 

Thinking that you — or a group that you support — actually has a chance at victory, then having it taken away, seems more painful than never believing you had a chance at all. 

On Saturday, Penn men’s lacrosse gave me hope. After losing its last five Ivy League games and ending the conference season near the bottom of the League standings, I thought they had a chance to pull off a massive upset at Notre Dame in the final game of the season. Even though the Quakers had already lost out on the postseason — for the first time since before the iPhone existed — they had a chance to end the season on a high note. 

With a 6-2 halftime lead on the road against the No. 6 Fighting Irish, I thought that the Quakers could finish the job and get the upset victory.  

And then, as Notre Dame kept scoring and Penn followed it up with empty possessions, my hope dwindled. I’d seen this story before, and it never ended well for the Quakers. 

Coming out of halftime, Notre Dame scored four goals in under seven minutes. A Penn defense which had held the Fighting Irish in check — only letting in two goals for the entire first half — appeared to be crumbling in real time. By the end of the third quarter, a four-goal Quaker lead had swung to a two-goal advantage for the home team. 

During its now seven-game losing streak, Penn has lost in just about every conceivable way. There have been blowouts and narrow defeats, even a game where the Quakers fought all the way to overtime. There have been times when Penn trailed wire-to-wire and games where it led for large swathes of time. 

I thought Saturday would be different, but that wasn’t meant to be. The Quakers gave me hope, then — goal by goal — took it all away. 

In a way, Saturday’s game represented a microcosm of Penn’s season. The Quakers dropped their season opener at Georgetown way back in February, but proceeded to win a pair of games. Despite an 0-2 stretch during a visit to North Carolina, Penn marked the Ides of March (and the midpoint of its season) with a 9-8 win against Brown to begin its Ivy campaign. The Ivy League would be tough, but the Quakers were in position to make it back to the conference tournament. 

But in the second half of its 2025 campaign — just like the second half against Notre Dame — everything went downhill. It began with a pair of one-goal defeats at home versus Saint Joseph’s and Dartmouth. Then a trip to Ithaca ended in a 15-5 blowout. Penn couldn’t keep up with Yale, falling by three goals. To close the season, games against Harvard, Princeton, and Notre Dame — all ranked in the top 10 — resulted in losses for the Quakers. The Ivy League tournament will be held this weekend, and for the first season in over a decade, Penn will not be represented. 

There will be much thought about what went wrong with the Quakers this season. The program holds itself to a high standard, and rightly so; Penn consistently does well in recruiting rankings and preseason polls. Coach Mike Murphy and his staff always schedule a hard non-conference slate, giving his team a chance to test themselves before a grueling Ivy schedule. They have forgotten far more lacrosse than I have ever, and will ever, know. But even to me, a few things have stood out. 

First and foremost, the offense. The Quakers finished second-to-last in the Ivy League in goals per game, at just 8.57. The fifth-place team scored nearly three more goals per game. Beyond the statistics, Penn’s offense seemed static for long periods of time, passing the ball around the perimeter and not generating good looks on the goal. 

Furthermore, the Quakers did not excel at the situational lacrosse which is so crucial to winning games. Penn only scored on 35% of its man-up opportunities. The defense gave up important goals in transition and Penn turned the ball over the most out of any Ivy League team, while forcing the fewest throughout the conference. 

But that is all in the past, and it is now the offseason. I’m sure that coach Murphy and his staff will perform a much more thorough autopsy than I can provide, and work on ways to return Penn to its winning ways in 2026. Speaking to him throughout this season, I have the utmost confidence in his stewardship of the program. 

For the Quakers to be successful again, it will have to replace significant parts of the current roster. Senior goalkeeper Emmet Carroll will be moving on after a storied and decorated career in Red and Blue, leaving behind big shoes that need to be filled in the net. So will two of the top four goalscorers, seniors attacker Ben Smith and attacker/midfielder Cam Rubin. 

There are reasons to hope for improvement. Highly-rated attacking commit Jackson Maher — the sixth-ranked player in the nation in Inside Lacrosse’s recruiting ranking — could provide an instant spark to the offense. Sophomores Davis Provost and Chris Patterson emerged as legitimate offensive options this year. The team overall is young and has room to improve. 

I had hope on Saturday, but Penn men’s lacrosse took it away. The 2025 season as a whole was a disappointment, but I still have hope for the program at large going forward.

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